Yahoo! Answers is an example of a community-based, Internet-accessible question-and-answer submission system that allows users all over the world to submit questions that other users all over the world can view and answer. Users of question-and-answer submission systems submit such questions and answers using an Internet Browser such as Mozilla Firefox. After a user (an “asker”) has submitted a question, other users can read the question and, if they choose, submit an answer to the question. Question-and-answer submission systems typically allow users to see, along with a question, answers that have been submitted for that question, and the pseudonyms of the users (the “answerers”) who submitted those answers.
Askers and answerers (collectively, “submitters”) might be asked to adhere to certain rules and guidelines when submitting questions and answers (collectively, “submissions”), but the open-ended nature of the question-and-answer submission system might not prevent these submitters from submitting submissions that do not follow these rules and guidelines. Unfortunately, where the content of submissions is at least initially unconstrained and unfiltered at the time of submission, at least some of that content is prone to contain abusive, obscene, illegal, or low quality content. Because users of a question-and-answer submission system often believe that they are shielded by some degree of anonymity, and because of the typically impersonal nature of the system, question-and-answer submission systems are especially likely to become corrupted by the submission of such content.
Operators of a question-and-answer submission system typically don't want the content made accessible through the system to include any abusive, obscene, illegal, or low-quality content. When the content of the system includes a high proportion of such unwanted content, people may be less inclined to use the system. Therefore, operators of question-and-answer submission system sometimes attempt to take action against abusive, obscene, illegal, and/or low quality content.
For example, periodically, an operator might examine the submissions that have been submitted to the system since the last time that the operator examined the system's content. The operator might delete, from the system, submissions that are abusive, obscene, illegal, low quality, or that otherwise violate the system's rules and guidelines.
Even where there are many operators frequently examining recent submissions, though, the scale of some question-and-answer submission systems may become so large that even many diligently working operators cannot keep up with the deluge of new submissions. Some unwanted submissions may escape the operators' eyes and pollute the system at least temporarily. Additionally, operators often are unable to perform their services for free, and the limited financial resources of a question-and-answer submission system might preclude the hiring of a quantity of operators sufficient to moderate the system effectively.
Sometimes, by the time that an operator detects abusive, obscene, illegal, and/or low quality content, the content has already been viewed online. Sometimes, the viewing of even a small amount of such content can be highly harmful and can have severe consequences, especially where the viewer is of a tender age. Under some circumstances, the system owners might be found in violation of the law for allowing such material to be accessed online.
To prevent undesirable content from being viewed, operators may configure a system so that new submissions do not become available for viewing until after an operator has reviewed and approved those submissions. Unfortunately, where high quantities of new submissions are being submitted regularly, a backlog of unreviewed submissions can pile up. The rate at which the system's content is refreshed consequently decreases, making the entire system seem stale. When submitters do not see a system update itself in response to submissions, those submitters may come to believe that the system is not functioning properly, and might be disinclined to use the system in the future.
The problems discussed above are not limited to question-and-answer submission systems. The problems discussed above are applicable to many different kinds of online systems in which submitters are allowed to submit user-generated content that becomes accessible by other users of those online systems. Collectively, such online systems may be called “social knowledge systems.” For example, the problems discussed above also sometimes plague social knowledge system such as online bulletin board systems and online auction systems.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.